The COVID-19 pandemic's psychological impact prompted this study to investigate the inner child healing course's effectiveness in reducing fear of COVID-19 and improving emotional family relationships. This quasi-experimental research adopted a pretest-posttest design with a control group. Convenience sampling was employed to select 42 women randomly from five psychotherapy centers in Isfahan (Iran) in 2020. They were then randomly assigned to a control group (n = 21) and an experimental group (n = 21). The experimental group received the inner child healing course in six sessions, whereas the control group received no intervention. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale and the Emotional Family Relationships Questionnaire were utilized for data collection. Analysis of covariance was employed for data analysis using SPSS 25. Participants in the inner child healing group reported significantly higher mean scores on happiness (12.40 ± 1.11) compared to the control group (5.90 ± 2.24). This pattern of higher means in the inner child healing group persisted for freedom and intimacy in family relationships (11.50 ± 1.90 vs. 5.12 ± 1.60), trust in the family (13.61 ± 1.90 vs. 6.21 ± 2.04), and collaborative decision-making with family (12.34 ± 2.05 vs. 6.31 ± 1.80). Statistical analysis revealed significant effects of the inner child healing course on happiness (<.01), freedom and intimacy with family members (<.01), trust in family members (<.01), and collaborative decision-making with family members (<.01) in women. Notably, the intervention did not yield statistically significant effects on commitment and responsibility or fear of COVID-19 in this sample of married women. This suggests the inner child healing course may improve emotional well-being within families during COVID-19.

Although cross-sectional studies have explored the correlation between envy and loneliness, few longitudinal studies have investigated the bidirectional association between envy and loneliness at both trait and state levels. Here, through a longitudinal study and a daily diary investigation, we examined the interrelationships between envy and loneliness at both trait and state levels. In study 1, 288 college students answered the Dispositional Envy Scale (DES) and UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCL-8 Scale) twice with a one-year interval. The results of cross-lagged analysis indicated that dispositional envy could predict trait loneliness, while not vice versa. In study 2, using the adapted items form DES and UCL-8, a 14-day diary survey from a sample of 195 college students was conducted to investigate the interrelationship between state envy and state loneliness. The results of multivariate latent growth models and hierarchical linear models indicated that state envy could positively predict state loneliness and vice versa. Taken together, these findings uncover the bidirectional relationship between envy and loneliness at both the trait and state levels.

While the construct of s has received ample theoretical and empirical attention, its virtuous counterpart--has been largely neglected. Yet, as argued here and elsewhere, the metacognitive practice of being honest with oneself may be among the most crucial concomitants of psychological growth and change. Consequently, drawing on theory and research from across several disciplines, this paper proposes a novel framework for understanding and measuring self-honesty as a core value. Using data from three separate studies that explore self-honesty via a newly developed self-report, implicit association test and an ecological momentary assessment measure, findings offer preliminary support for the construct of self-honesty as a distinct, psychometrically valid and reliable construct with relevance to multiple indices of psychological functioning. Pending further research, these findings have potentially far-reaching implications for our understanding and promotion of human virtue and flourishing.

Agency is action aimed at goals selected by an agent. A deterministic world view leaves scant room for agency. To reconcile the arguments, we represent action as nested control systems, ranging from clearly deterministic to clearly volitional. Negative feedback minimizes deviations from setpoints (goals). Goals are determined by higher modules in a hierarchy of systems, ranging from gamma-efferent spindles through reflexes to operant responses; these last, and the larger system that contains them, called the Self, comprise volitional agents. When operants become habitual they descend to closed teleonomic systems-automaticity. Change in emotional states, and unpredicted changes in the context-raise them back to full volitional systems. At the highest level is the Self-the brain's model of the agent. When aroused out of open teleonomic functioning, it must reconsider means and ends. It does so by simulating action plans, using the same neural systems it uses to effect them. The simulated stimuli and responses are conscious, approximating their perceptions as experienced in real time; this verisimilitude gives them their hedonic value. Positive feedback plays a key role in these complex adaptive systems, as it focuses and holds attention on the most salient percepts and goals, permitting the self-organization of action plans. The Self is not a separate entity, but a colloquy of command modules wearing the avatar of the agent. This system is put into correspondence with Grossberg's Adaptive Resonance Theory. Free will and determinism emerge not as binary opposites, but the modulating inputs to a spectrum of systems.

The study of spatial skills is gaining importance due to their relevance in everyday activities and their critical role in developing competencies across various academic disciplines. The main goal of this study was to explore whether mental rotation strategies, such as the so-called holistic -rotating an entire object- and piecemeal -rotating individual parts of the object- approaches, can be induced, and whether sex differences emerge during the process of strategy induction. This objective holds a pivotal role as it could lead to the enhancement of mental rotation abilities and the development of effective interventions. To achieve this, a mental rotation task was conducted while eye movements were recorded. In the first block, participants solved the task freely, while in the second block, they received instructions to solve it through either a holistic (42 participants) or a piecemeal (43 participants) strategy in a between-subjects design. In both strategies, participants showed better performance in the second block compared to the first. Males outperformed females. The holistic strategy resulted in faster reaction times in the second block. The number of fixations and saccadic movements decreased in the second block compared to the first for the holistic strategy, while the piecemeal strategy exhibited the opposite ocular pattern. These results indicate that effective mental rotation strategies were successfully elicited. No sex differences were found in the analyzed eye movement variables.

This study explores the effectiveness of machine learning models in predicting the end of romantic relationships among Peruvian youth and adults, considering various socioeconomic and personal attributes. The study implements logistic regression, gradient boosting, support vector machines, and decision trees on SMOTE-balanced data using a sample of 429 individuals to improve model robustness and accuracy. Using stratified random sampling, the data is split into training (80%) and validation (20%) sets. The models are evaluated through 10-fold cross-validation, focusing on accuracy, F1-score, AUC, sensitivity, and specificity metrics. The Random Forest model is the preferred algorithm because of its superior performance in all evaluation metrics. Hyperparameter tuning was conducted to optimize the model, identifying key predictors of relationship dissolution, including negative interactions, desire for emotional infidelity, and low relationship satisfaction. SHAP analysis was utilized to interpret the directional impact of each variable on the prediction outcomes. This study underscores the potential of machine learning tools in providing deep insights into relationship dynamics, suggesting their application in personalized therapeutic interventions to enhance relationship quality and reduce the incidence of breakups. Future research should incorporate larger and more diverse datasets to further validate these findings.

The practice of "flexing," showing off one's wealth and status, gradually penetrates daily life on various social media platforms, most notably Instagram. We investigated the extent to which exposure to conspicuous consumption by a stranger stimulated the viewers' materialistic aspiration and whether this effect could be mediated by anticipated engagement and moderated by trait mindfulness. A large number of Instagram users in Indonesia ( = 2,296, 75.30% female; = 31.14 years old, = 7.09) completed the trait mindfulness scale, randomly received a single Instagram photo showcasing luxury material vs. experiential purchase, provided an estimate of the intensity of love and comment from other viewers (i.e., anticipated engagement), and filled out the materialistic aspiration scale. Participants exposed to material purchase reported higher aspiration than those exposed to experiential purchase, but lower anticipated engagements also reduced materialistic aspiration. Participants with higher trait mindfulness were better at distinguishing the effects of conspicuous consumption on anticipated engagement and materialistic aspiration. These findings indicate that the viewers' anticipation of collective attention could reverse the impact of exposure to conspicuous consumption and the potential of trait mindfulness as an anti-mimetic quality for situational materialism.

Most IRT applications in personality assume that the measured trait is a bipolar dimension, normally distributed in the population. These assumptions, however, could be questionable for maladaptive, (quasi) pathological traits that still fall in the normal range. This study focuses on one such trait, Callousness, and uses two different instruments and samples to determine whether there is a basis for modeling it as a unipolar trait instead of a bipolar one. More specifically, the following community samples were used, recruited in several Spanish high schools: a) 719 adolescents (13-19 years old, 55.8% girls), b) 681 adolescents (13-19 years old, 44.9% girls). Callousness was assessed with the Inventory of Callous-unemotional traits and Antisocial behavior in the first sample and with the Inventory of Callous Unemotional traits in the second sample. We compared the outcomes of fitting the Graded-Response model (a bipolar-trait model) and the Log-Logistic model (a unipolar trait model) in these community samples and found that they differed considerably at the scoring level. In terms of accuracy, the conditional reliability functions had opposite patterns: it was maximum at high levels in the Graded-Response model and at low levels in the Log-Logistic model. In terms of validity, the models showed different results regarding the prediction of indirect aggressiveness and non-planning impulsiveness.

Influential models of fears and phobias suggest that irrational threat beliefs underpin excessive fear. Yet, many fearful individuals recognize their fear is not justified. Drawing on memory competition/multiple representations theory, we developed a novel, fear-relevant procedure, which reveals conflicting representations of threat. In three experiments (Experiment 1,  = 49, Experiment 2,  = 47, Experiment 3,  = 75), fearful and non-fearful participants not only provided Probability Ratings for fear-related outcomes in a fear-relevant exposure task, but placed Bets, with payoffs depending on what happened in reality. Fearful participants displayed much higher Probability Ratings than Low fear participants. However, Bets revealed far less consistent group differences, even when proximal to threat (Experiments 1 and 2), and differences between High and Low fear participants' Bets disappeared when they could not be anchored to previous Probability Ratings (Experiment 3). A Neutral Betting task also showed that general betting strategies were comparable between groups. We suggest that these findings may reflect the multi-representational nature of belief, in which both adaptive and maladaptive representations of a feared object may exist in parallel, with personal and contextual factors determining which form of representation is retrieved or expressed. This perspective can provide insights into the complex interplay of adaptive and maladaptive beliefs that is a central focus of currently dominant therapies.

Procrastination is a personality tendency with several deleterious consequences. Trait mindfulness has been found to be associated with procrastination. Nevertheless, the relationship between trait mindfulness and procrastination has yielded inconsistent results in previous studies. Therefore, by utilizing a three-level random-effects meta-analysic model, the present study synthesized previous studies to investigate the relationship between trait mindfulness and procrastination and explore the potential moderators that may affect this relationship. A significant and negative relationship between trait mindfulness and procrastination ( = -0.365;  < 0.0001) was found by analyzing 36 effect sizes from 19 studies with 14,094 participants. The subsequent moderator analysis did not reveal any significant moderators. Overall, the current meta-analysis shed insightful light on information for future research on reducing procrastination by considering utilizing mindfulness-based interventions that make it easier for individuals to maintain a mindfulness state and enhance trait mindfulness, thereby reducing procrastination.

Making judgments of learning (JOLs) can directly influence memory, a phenomenon termed the reactivity effect of JOLs. However, controversy surrounds the mechanism behind JOL reactivity. This study employs related and unrelated word pairs as learning materials to compare memory outcomes across different JOL conditions. We contrasted the traditional JOL reactivity paradigm with a covert retrieval induction paradigm to explore whether JOLs impact memory through covert retrieval. In Experiment 1, data from 40 participants (18 females, 22 males) were analyzed, revealed distinct patterns between the two paradigms. When word pairs are presented entirely, the JOL group outperforms the no-JOL group in memorizing related pairs, aligning with traditional JOL reactivity. Conversely, when target words are omitted, the JOL group's memory resembles that of the no-JOL group. This comparison suggested that JOLs may prompt covert retrieval. In Experiment 2, which involved manipulating the retrieval strength, data from 52 participants (46 females, 6 males) were analyzed, yielded results consistent with those of Experiment 1. We conclude that covert retrieval significantly contributes to the JOL reactivity effect, enhancing memory through JOL-induced covert retrieval.

Although the effects of mood and personality traits on memory performance have previously been studied, their relationship to the metamemory and metacognitive processes is still unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of mood induction (positive and negative) and personality traits (extroverted and neurotics) on metacognitive beliefs, memory confidence, the judgment of learning (JOL) and feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments during face-name recognition tasks. One hundred twenty-seven participants who met the criteria based on their extraverted and neurotic personality scores on the Big Five Personality Inventory were randomly assigned to positive and negative mood induction conditions. We found that neurotics showed lower JOL judgments and accuracy than extroverts. The interaction effect between mood and personality significantly affected JOL and FOK accuracy, indicating that while extraverts were more accurate during positive induction, neurotics were more accurate during negative induction. In addition, neurotics were underconfident in their memory and reported more negative metacognitive beliefs than extroverts. We concluded that memory and metamemory processes are distinguishable in their relationships with mood states and personality traits. Our data also showed that JOL and FOK are distinct processes that support domain-specific metacognitive judgments.

Envy and interpersonal curiosity are common emotional and psychological phenomena in relationships that collectively influence our social behavior and experiences. However, there is a research gap regarding the interaction between interpersonal curiosity and envy. Therefore, this study will primarily utilize daily diary methods to investigate the relationship between interpersonal curiosity and envy.

The authors identity the relationship between the positive and negative aspects of social media and the ideal belief learning and behavior of university students. The cluster sampling method was adopted in the paper, including Guangdong, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, and Jiangsu provinces. A total of 1014 questionnaires were distributed to a purposive sample of university students between the ages of 16 and 35. The authors applied the uses and gratifications theory to study students' social media behavior. This study identified 18 positive and negative effects of social media. Noteworthy positive outcomes attributed to social media in fostering ideals and beliefs encompass heightened awareness, enhanced communication facilitation, convenient connectivity, reduced expenses on educational materials, improved social and communication proficiencies, as well as diminished stress levels. The negative effects of new media and the Internet include a lack of critical thinking, a waste of time, dysgraphia, disrupted connection to learning, students' laziness, and health risks.

The role of executive functions in long-term memory has been studied. We describe a single-case study, consisting of a 45-year-old male patient, hospitalized for right frontal stroke. After the stroke, the patient had memory alterations in everyday activities. However, performance in short-term memory tests was not significantly altered. Long-term memory assessments included pre- and post-stroke episodic, semantic, and procedural memories. Specific skills involved in the acquisition of new learning (auditory-verbal and visual reproduction) were also evaluated, as well as executive functions. The results evidence that short-term memory was not affected. Regarding long-term memory, significant differences were observed between pre- and post-stroke knowledge, the former being better preserved, which reveals anterograde amnesia. Pre-stroke long-term memory was also affected, but only with respect to episodic knowledge, with semantic and procedural memories preserved (episodic retrograde amnesia). Executive functions were altered as well, which could have been a factor affecting the acquisition and consolidation of new learning, despite the fact that short-term memory was not significantly altered. Therefore, executive functions might be a determinant factor in the acquisition of new learning, regardless of short-term memory processes, at least partially. According to the results of the present study, alterations in these functions might lead to anterograde amnesia. This entails the need to evaluate executive functions as an intrinsic part of memory evaluation.

Affective feelings naturally infuse individuals' perceptions, serving as valid windows onto the real world. The further explains how these feelings work: as properties of individuals' perceptual experiences, these feelings influence perception. Notably, this hypothesis based on affective feelings with different valences has been substantiated, whereas the existing evidence is not compelling enough. Moreover, whether specific affective feelings can be experienced as properties of target perception remains unclear. Addressing these two issues deepens our understanding of the nature of emotional representation. Hence, we investigated the affective realism hypothesis based on affective feelings with different valences and specific emotions, comparing it with the affective misattribution hypothesis. In Experiment 1, we examined the effects of affective feelings with various valences on targets' perception through the AM (1a) and CFS paradigms (1b). In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of affective feelings with anger, sadness, and disgust using similar methods. Results from Experiments 1a and 1b consistently indicated significant differences in valence ratings of neutral faces under emotional contexts with varying valences. Experiment 2a revealed significant differences in specific emotion ratings of neutral faces under different specific emotional contexts in the AM paradigm, whereas such differences were not observed in the CFS paradigm in Experiment 2b. We concluded that affective feelings with different valences, rather than specific emotions, can be experienced as inherent properties of target perception, validating the affective realism hypothesis. These findings supported the view that the nature of emotional representation should be described as affective dimensions.

The MoodWheel app is a newly developed tool that uses experience sampling method (ESM) for assessing negative and positive emotions, based on the circumplex model of emotions and the binary model of distress, and including behavioral and heart rate (HR) measurement via photoplethysmography and the possibility to personalize the application with additional measures. Aims: This study was designed to assess the factorial structure, reliability and validity of the MoodWheel (MW) application for evaluating emotions in children, adolescents.

Extensive attention has been dedicated to studying the influence of others on genuine or false memory during ongoing and post-collaboration. These studies have revealed both detrimental and beneficial effects on episodic memory. Although ongoing effects such as collaborative inhibition have been examined in the semantic situation, the post-collaboration effects have not received the same level of scrutiny To address this gap, the current study instructed participants to either generate or remember idioms during the study phase, which encompassed semantic and episodic encoding. There were three recall sessions, during which four groups were designated: individual (III), preceding collaboration (CII), following collaboration (ICI), and multiple collaboration (CCI). The main results and implications of the study are outlined below. (a) The detrimental effect of collaborative inhibition was found to be sensitive to collaborative frequency, indicating that the contribution of retrieval strategy disruption proposed by the Retrieval Strategy Disruption Hypothesis (RSDH) is conditional. (b) We observed a reliable beneficial effect of error pruning, as evidenced by smaller errors in collaborators compared to individual participants. Furthermore, this beneficial effect was consistently evident in both ongoing and post-collaboration scenarios for the two encoding tasks. (c) The post-collaborative memory benefit was observed in both Recall 2 and Recall 3. This suggests that mechanisms such as relearning, cross-cueing, re-exposure, and pruning errors may have contributed to this effect. (d) The observation of the beneficial effects of picked-up and shared memory indicates the contribution of similar mechanisms as to post-collaborative memory benefit. (e) These effects were observed regardless of the encoding task, but they were influenced by both collaborative frequency and collaborative order. The results are discussed in terms of the RSDH and other relevant theories. Additionally, future research directions are provided.

In English, head is associated with rationality and logic, whereas heart is related to feeling and emotionality. In Chinese, these head- and heart-related metaphors also exist. Could these head- and heart-related conceptual metaphors influence people's moral decision-making and personality? This seems so based on the previous findings that (a) simply pointing an index finger to heart (versus head) position caused participants to produce more emotional responses in a moral decision task, and (b) participants who believed themselves to be heart locators, relative to those who regarded themselves as head locators, scored higher in affect intensity, femininity, and intimacy related activities. The current study attempted to replicate these findings, following the same design and procedure of previous work, with Chinese participants from Hong Kong and Chinese mainland. In Experiments 1a and 1b, 203 participants performed the moral decision task on dilemmas with their index fingers pointing to head or heart. In Experiments 2a and 2b, 304 participants completed the scales of self-location, affective intensity, femininity, and intimacy related activities. In these high-powered experiments, we failed to replicate the findings of previous work. Bayesian analyses further showed that no head- and heart-related conceptual metaphor effect was likely to occur. Potential reasons for our inconsistent results with those of previous studies and the implications of our current findings were discussed.

Three experiments were conducted to examine gullibility as measured by people's bias to respond with a True response when performing sentence verification judgment task. The experiments manipulated the location of unfamiliar concepts such that some sentences contained unfamiliar concepts in the subject while other sentences contained unfamiliar concepts in the predicate, hence measuring the bias to judge an idea to be true when one cannot make the decision relying on background knowledge. The results indicated: 1) a higher frequency of True response when an unfamiliar concept is located in the subject compared to when it is in the predicate; and 2) the frequency of True response was lower than chance level even when unfamiliar information is located in the subject. The results were discussed in relation to gullibility and how the verification judgment is processed as a plausibility judgment.